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Ethics and quality in research and publishing

Ethics and quality in research and publishing. Jukka-Pekka Suomela 2014. Conducting studies ( ethical consideration ) . Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity , http://www.tenk.fi/en

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Ethics and quality in research and publishing

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  1. Ethics and quality in research and publishing Jukka-Pekka Suomela 2014

  2. Conductingstudies (ethicalconsideration) • FinnishAdvisory Board on ResearchIntegrity, http://www.tenk.fi/en • Responsible conduct of research and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in Finland, 2012 (appliedfrom 1.3.2013)

  3. Conductingstudies (ethicalconsideration) • University of Turku, EthicsCommittee, http://www.utu.fi/en/research/ethicality/Pages/ethics-committee.aspx • non-medicalresearch • The Hospital District of Southwest Finland, EthicsCommittee, http://www.vsshp.fi/fi/tutkijoille/eettinen-toimikunta/Sivut/default.aspx • medicalresearch (incl. clinicalnutritionstudies)

  4. Conductingstudies (ethicalconsideration) • World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration • National Committee on Medical Research Ethics, http://www.tukija.fi/en

  5. Research misconducts • Research misconducts include plagiarism, fabrication and falsification • Plagiarism is a growing problem in English-language journals, especially among non-native English speaking scientists, also growing problem among graduate students • Example: Plagiarism (fairUTU): • http://www.utu.fi/fi/yksikko/yliopistopalvelut/opintohallinto/ohjauksen-ja-koulutuksen-tukipalvelut/ok/fairutu/Sivut/Guidelines-for-Misconduct-and-Fraud-at-the-UTU-.aspx

  6. Publishing bias • the tendency of researchers, editors, and companies to handle the reporting of experimental results that are positive (i.e. showing a significant finding) differently from results that are negative (i.e. supporting the null hypothesis) or inconclusive, leading to a misleading bias in the overall published literature • A problem!

  7. Publishing practice (ethicalconsideration) • Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines • publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines • publicationethics.org/international-standards-editors-and-authors

  8. Publishing practice (ethicalconsideration) • Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals • www.icmje.org • CONSORT 2010 Statement

  9. Publishing practice (ethicalconsideration) • Each journal has its own guidelines • For example British Journal of Nutrition, http://assets.cambridge.org/BJN/BJN_ifc.pdf • European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, http://mts-ejcn.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex?form_type=display_auth_instructions

  10. Quality of scientific articles • Commonly evaluated by measuring the amount of citations it has received (citation index). • Also the objectivity of the text and the references used are important • Citations also used for evaluating journals, individual researchers, research groups, research institutes and universities, subject areas and countries.

  11. Quality of scientific articles • Citation index • First citation database in 1960: Science Citation Index (SCI) by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) • In more specifics, the number of citations indicate the response of the scientific community • Correlate quite well with the results from peer-reviews – considered an appropriate indicator of quality • Databases with citation information • Web of Science (WoS) (Thomson Reuters, former SCI by ISI) • Scopus (Elsevier) • Google Scholar (also non-scientific)

  12. Quality of scientific articles • New: Altmetrics • e.g. visibility and impact of the article in web and social media - fast

  13. Quality of a journal • Evaluated by qualitative and quantitative methods • Expert surveys, publication forum, peer reviews (subjective assessment methods) • Circulation and usage statistics, acceptance and rejection rates, indexing services covering the journal • Journal impact factor (IF) • Do not tell about a specific article or the level of research produced by a specific researcher

  14. Quality of a journal • The characteristics of a quality journal are: • high standards for acceptance of manuscripts • A broadly representative editorial board • a critical refereeing system • promptness of publication • coverage by major abstracting and indexing services • high confidence level of scientists in the contents • high frequency of citation by other journals

  15. Quality of a journal • Journal impact factor • Is the number of citations received in that year/papers published in that journal during the two preceding years • the oldest and an extensively used index for measuring the quality of a journal • Based on an assumption that those articles that are often cited contain significant knowledge for their discipline • Found in Journal Citation Reports (JCR,Thomson Reuters) • Includes the journals in WoS • Only the high quality journals are included (according to Thomson Reuter Criteria) • Journal list can be sorted according to the impact factor, cited half life, article influence etc • 2007 onwards JCR also publishes Five year Impact Factors for journals

  16. Quality of a journal • Weaknesses of Journal impact factor • Quality of journal with the citation not considered • Citation practices differ between the research fields, direct comparison only within discipline • Focused on English language journals • Inclusion of self-citations • Review articles get more citations • Misused to draw conclusions about the performance of an individual researcher or a research group

  17. Quality of a journal • New factors for measuring the impact • Take into account the quality of the journal citing the article • Based on the PageRank algorithm • Analyze the articles and the network that the citations form, and in this way analyze the relative value of the citation • More complicated than journal IF • Under development, significance to be seen • Eigenfactor, Article influence, H index, SCImago Journal Rank Indicator (SJR), Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)

  18. Quality of a journal • H index (Hirsch index) • Can be calculated from publication list when the number of citations is available for the articles. Available in international citation databases (WoS, Scopus). • productivity of a journal over a long time period • journals that publish review articles are not over-valued (compare to journal IF) • not calculated for one specific fixed time period like the IF: also comparison of journals that differ from each other in terms of how fast the journals start getting citations

  19. Quality of a journal • H index (Hirsch index) • Publish or Perish (A citation analysis software program) calculates the H-index of journals using citation data from Google Scholar • Also evaluation of the journals not found in Thomson Reuters' WoS database (without IF score) • fairer evaluation to journals that are cited mainly in sources outside the WoS, like in books or in journals that are not included in the WoS.

  20. References • Subject guides, Oulu University library, http://libguides.oulu.fi/subjectguides • Altmetrics – article level metrics, http://www.tut.fi/en/library/research-support-services/evaluating-publication-activities/bibliometrics/altmetrics/index.htm

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